One day in the spring of ’93, soon after Miss Williams’ trunks, containing her theatrical costumes, had been brought to our rooms in the block in Chicago, returning from the city one afternoon, I met upon the stairway leading to my office a jauntily dressed young man, whom, as I passed, I asked to cease smoking his cigarette within the building, and a few minutes later was being saucily laughed at in my office by Miss Williams. So clever had the deception been, both in clothing and change in facial expression by aid of her color box, that upon her wishing to do so, I allowed her to accompany me upon a trip to Aurora, Ill., and later to St. Joseph, Mich., costumed in this manner. That both of these trips, made under these circumstances, actually occurred, I am able to prove by competent and disinterested persons, and I feel sure that Miss Williams was in Toronto, probably meeting the children at Hamilton, and returning with them, and keeping one with her while the other was killed; and next day, while I must necessarily have been hundreds of miles away, inasmuch as I registered at Prescott at 4 P. M., she, if any one, met Hatch near this house, disguised in this manner. On August 15th, Mr. Cops, a Fort Worth attorney, obtained permission of the District Attorney to interview me, and, after questioning me for a time, said he would like to tell me his theory of how I had killed my Chicago victims, which was that while they were in my office I had in some way induced them to step inside the vault and then caused their death by suffocation. He said, “Why, Holmes, it is the plainest case I ever heard of, even the footprints of one of them are to be seen upon the door, there in their desperation they had tried to make their escape.”
I asked him when he believed the last of these deaths had occurred there. He replied, “Probably in July, 1893. In fact, if you could show me that Minnie Williams was alive after that date, I would be much inclined to believe that she was alive now and that she killed her sister, as you say, for if alive, only that could have been a sufficient motive to induce her to conceal her whereabouts for so long from her Texas friends.” I said, “Will you grant me that I am not guilty of taking lie there since I left Chicago about January 1, 1894, for Texas.” He replied, “Yes, I think that would be safe from the evidence I have gathered in Chicago.” I said, “In August, 1893, a fire occurred in the building, causing the destruction of many valuable letters and papers, and upon the building being repaired I bought this vault, in October or November, 1893, from a safe and vault company whose offices were one block West of LaSalle Street, between Madison and Adams, in Chicago. The purchase was made in the name of the Campbell Yates Company, and in December, 1893, it was put in place and plastered by a workman named Kriss.
“A very few days thereafter I left Chicago and have never been in the rooms since. There was never any other vault in the building, save one on the first floor that for years had been under the entire control of tenants occupying the drug and jewelry store in which it is located. I cannot give you the name or exact address of this company, but it is plainly printed upon the door of the vault, and upon your return to Chicago, if you care to do so, you can satisfy yourself of the truthfulness of my statement regarding it.” He said, “Until I can do this I cannot believe it to be true, but if I do find that such is the case I shall be inclined to return to Fort Worth and abandon my case, and upon the strength of what you have told me, I will say to you that I have lately learned that there has been found at Fort Worth among mail that was sent to you after you left that city, a London letter from Miss Williams, but being so sure in my own mind that she died nearly a year previous to that time, I have supposed it to be a clever forgery sent there by you to mislead those who found it.” I told him that Miss Williams had sent me three letters there which were forwarded by Mr. John L. Judd, my Denver agent, 1609 Lawrence Street, that city, to whom he could write to or visit to corroborate my statement. That two of these letters I had received and had supposed the other had been sent to the Dead Letter Office and destroyed; that if he would take the letter to Mr. ----- and others in Fort Worth, who knew her writing, they would at once tell him it was not a forgery. A few days later I heard of the explosion and fire at the block in Chicago and felt, as has lately been the case whenever I hear of any loss of life, strange disappearances or other misdemeanors not easily accounted for, throughout the United States—anywhere in the world in fact—almost thankful that the strong doors of my prison room make it impossible for such acts to now be ascribed to me.
OTHER DISAPPEARANCES
A Miss Van Tassand to the best of my knowledge I never saw. Certain it is that I hired no fruit store in Chicago, nor did I have a person of that name in my employ at any time.
A Mrs. Lee, said to have disappeared some time in 1893, I do not know of ever having seen.
Cora Quinlin is said by the newspapers to be alive. No insurance of any kind was ever caused to be placed upon the lie of this child by me nor did I know that such had been placed by others.
A Miss Cigrande was sent to me by the National Typewriter Exchange in Chicago in May, 1892. She worked faithfully in my interests until November, 1892, when, much against my wishes, she left my employ to be married, as I understood at the time. Some days after going away she returned for her mail, and at this time gave me one of her wedding cards, and also two or three others for tenants in the building who were not then in their rooms; and in response to inquiries lately made I have learned that at least five persons in and about Lafayette, Ind., received such cards, the post mark and her handwriting upon the envelope in which they were enclosed showing that she must have sent them herself after leaving my employ. While working for me she had also acted as the secretary of the Campbell-Yates Co., a corporation in which I was interested; and in 1893 certain papers relating to the business of this company that had been overlooked required her signature, and after considerable delay she came to the office in November, which was about one year after she left my employ. She accompanied me to lunch at Thompson’s restaurant, where I had eaten regularly for years, and where during the previous year she had often eaten with me. Here the man known as Henry, who for a long time has been head usher in this establishment and knew us both well, remarked to her, as he gave us our seats. “It is a long time since you were here.” She replied, “About one year.” A few days later she met me elsewhere in Chicago, at which time Arthur S. Kirk, a member of the well-known soap manufacturers, Kirk & Co., and two employees were present, and upon my recalling to Mr. Kirk’s memory certain business transactions I had with him at about this time he, as well as his employees, will remember the circumstances, and be able to fix the exact date and give an accurate description of Miss Cigrand.
Before leaving Chicago, she expressed a desire to re-enter my employ, stating that unless more kindly treated she should no longer live with her husband, but should either return to office work or re-enter the convent, where she had been educated, or some other similar institution.
She also told me that she had written her people, but should not visit them until she could give them financial aid, as she had been in the habit of doing before her marriage, and I think she will let me know her location and present name before I am made to suffer for her disappearance.
Miss Mary and Miss Kate Dunkee are both acknowledged by the Philadelphia authorities to be alive. Charles Cole is also known to be alive.
The Redman family, the child or its abductress, I never saw, and know nothing of the case save from the accounts published at the time.
Robert Latimer, a former janitor, a Mr. Brummager, one in my employ as a stenographer, also a Miss Mary Horacamp, from Hamilton, Canada, are alive, as shown by letters recently received from friends or relatives of each.
Miss Anna Betz, formerly of Englewood, Ill., whose death I have been so persistently charged with during the past year, the claims being made that it had been caused by a criminal operation performed by me at the instigation of -----, of Chicago, for which I received a release of the sum of $2,500 that I owed him, I was but little acquainted with, and if her death was occasioned in such a
manner I certainly am not the cause of it, and checks given upon my order by F. W. Devoe & Co., of New York will show when and how my indebtedness to Mr. ----- was canceled.
The same charge concerning a domestic named Lizzie is untrue, although I have no means of verifying it save that it has been proven that she was alive and in Chicago some months after I left that city, early in 1894.
PHOTOGRAPHIC IDENTIFICATIONS
In 1883 there were conducted within my knowledge a series of experiments illustrative of the unreliability of photographic identifications, and other similar experiments have often been made. These consisted in calling upon ten students who had witnessed two skillful sign writers executing some work upon a street window to later identify them from photographs. An open album was first handed to the student who was told to choose which one of two pictures before him was the party in question, they all made a prompt decision as to one or the other being the person they had seen, the fact being that neither of the pictures were of these men. To another group of ten that had also seen the painters under like circumstances was given a frame containing forty photographs, they being instructed that the picture of one of the men they had seen was among the number. Only one chose the right picture, and none looked for or found more than one, although without their knowledge pictures of both were plainly before them in the group. The result of the entire number of experiments was that over 95 per cent failed in their efforts at identification. In my own case by means of pictures, a man in Milwaukee is or was ready to make oath that I was in that city, accompanied by the two children, at a time when the Philadelphia authorities know we were elsewhere. A woman in Chicago is equally positive that I was several days at her boarding house with Miss Williams and the two children, at a time when the authorities know I was in Cincinnati, Ohio. In the same manner two Detroit parties are ready to swear that Miss Williams was in that city, accompanied by a man answering my description of Hatch, at a time when I knew he was with me in Indianapolis. In all these instances, and in the Toronto identifications, I believe that the parties have been honest in the statements made, but it must be remembered that they have been led to understand that no other decision was possible. A good example of the methods employed was furnished some months ago when at police headquarters here. I was taken before some twenty or thirty people by a detective who, when near enough for them to hear, said, “Mr. Holmes, these people are witnesses in the case for which you are to be tried here, and I wish to see if they can identify you.”
MOTIVES
Had my early life been such as to predispose me towards such criminal proceedings, still the want of motive remains. I can show that no motive did exist. Those who knew me personally can see that it could not have been avarice, for whenever I possessed even a small surplus of ready money, those whom I was owing or friends in need of same could always receive the most or all I possessed. Any ungovernable temper is excluded, for I do not possess it. Appetence cannot be ascribed as a motive, age and other circumstances to a great extent excluding same. The principal motive thus far ascribed, namely, that I had first involved my alleged victims in, or made them parties to, dishonest transactions can be excluded, from the fact that all such transactions are matters of recent date, and almost without exception they are found to have done nothing criminal. Either one of the foregoing I should prefer having my supposed shortcomings attributed to than the only remaining motive I can think of, namely, insanity, to which, either hereditary or acquired, I can plead not guilty, and be substantiated in so doing by sufficient number of medical experts, whose testimony cannot be lightly overlooked.
Of the more important cases, first that of the Williams sisters. Nannie Williams was wholly without means. The following account will show that had I given Hatch the $500 he wished to borrow of me in Burlington, there would have been little due Nannie Williams; nothing in fact, if I had included various small sums paid her from time to time, of which no account was kept. It should also be borne in mind that she still holds the title to the $10,000 Wilmette property, which, upon this account, is valueless to me.
RECEIVED BY M. WILLIAMS
April, 1893. Cash.
$2,500
April, 1893. Real Estate.
$7,000
August, 1894. Cash.
$600
$10,100
PAID M. WILLIAMS
May, 1893. Cash.
$2,500
July, 1893. Cash.
$1,000
December, 1893. Cash.
$750
January, 1894. Fort Worth Encumbrance
$1,725
February, 1894. Cash.
$1,750
October, 1894. Cash.
$1,000
October, 1894. Cash.
$412
$9,137
$963
Shown by cashed drafts and checks endorsed by M. Williams, and other forms of evidence.
In the case of Benj. F. Pitezel, the motive is said to have been the money to be derived from his insurance, and more than this from his Texas real estate holdings. In regard to the former, I can only reiterate that he was worth more to me each year he lived than the amount he was insured for, and each year he was becoming more valuable to me; therefore, why should I take his life? His real estate was not of one dollar’s value to him, and could only be of value to me after he had signed certain papers, the want of which I felt within thirty days after his death. This is also true of his patents and other belongings. The claim that I designed to kill the six other members of the Pitezel family to avoid being held accountable for the small sum of $5,200, seems too unlikely a motive to call for a denial, and, excluding this, it will be hard to find another, when the care and attention I have given them for years is considered.
In conclusion, I wish to say that I am but a very ordinary man, even below the average in physical strength and mental ability, and to have planned and executed the stupendous amount of wrongdoing that has been attributed to me would have been wholly beyond my power, and even had I been able to have performed it, a still greater task would have been the successful elaboration of a story at the time of my arrest that, if untrue, would have provided for the many exigencies that at that time I could not have known would have occurred later in the case; and I feel justified in asking from the general public a suspension of judgment as to my guilt or innocence, not while the various charges can be proven against me, but while I can disprove them, a task which I feel able to satisfactorily and expeditiously accomplish. And here I cannot say finis—it is not the end—for besides doing this there is also the work of bringing to justice those for whose wrong doings I am today suffering, and this not to prolong or save my own life, for since the day I heard of the Toronto horror I have not cared to live but that to those who have looked up to and honored me in the past it shall not in the future be said that I suffered the ignominious death of a murderer.
Holmes Confesses 27 Murders
THE MOST AWFUL STORY OF MODERN TIMES TOLD BY THE FIEND
IN HUMAN SHAPE.
Every Detail of His Fearful Crimes Told by the Man Who Admits He Is
Turning Into the Shape of the Devil.
THE TALE OF THE GREATEST CRIMINAL IN HISTORY
(Copyright, 1896 by W.R. Hearst and James Elverson, Jr.)
During the past few months the desire has been repeatedly expressed that I make a detailed confession of all the graver crimes that have with such marvellous skill been traced out and brought home to me. I have been tried for murder, convicted, sentenced, and the first step of my execution upon May seventh, namely, the reading of my death warrant, has been carried out, and it now seems a fitting time, if ever, to make known the details of the twenty-seven murders, of which it would be useless to longer say I am not guilty, in the face of the overwhelming amount of proof that has been brought together, not only in one but in each and every case; and because in this confession I speak only of cases that have been thus investigated and of no others, I trust it w
ill not give rise to a supposition that I am still guilty of other murders which I am withholding.
To those inclined to think thus, I will say that the detectives have gone over my entire life, hardly a day or an act has escaped their closest scrutiny, and to judge that I am guilty of more than these cases which they have traced out is to cast discredit upon their work. So marvelous has been the success of these men into whose hands the proving of my guilt was given, that as I look back upon their year’s work it seems almost impossible that men gifted with only human intelligence could have been so skilful, and I feel that I can here call attention to what the prosecution at the close of my trial was denied the pleasure of stating, concerning their ability, though no words of mine can fittingly express what the world at large owes to these impartial and untiring representatives, and more especially to Assistant District Attorney Barlow and Detective Frank Geyer and to O. La Forrest Perry, of the Fidelity Mutual Life Association of Philadelphia; for it is principally owing to their unerring judgment, skill and perseverance that in a few days I am to be forever placed beyond the power of committing other, and, perhaps, if possible, more horrid wrongs. Surely justice, if attended by such servants as these could no longer, in the sense of making mistakes, be appropriately portrayed as being blind.
Confessions of the Serial Killer H.H. Holmes (Illustrated) Page 14
